I never fail to be disheartened by the inevitable. Just when you get totally sucked into any form of art (music, dance, movies) you’re quickly reminded that it’s nothing more than another business and it’s all just about the money.
Take the amazing Lord of the Rings trilogy. In my mind, the most incredible achievement in film history (I still personally maintain that Return of the King is the single greatest film ever made). It was just a year ago that Officials at New Line where praising Peter Jackson for his accomplishment, and Peter Jackson was gushing over New Line, thanking them endlessly for their support. Well boys and girls, time to snap back to reality. It’s a business… and where theres big money, there are big fights.
CNN is reporting that Peter Jackson has filed a lawsuit against New Line for unpaid profits from the Lord of the Ring. Here’s an excerpt from the article:One of the principal claims of the suit is that Time Warner Inc.-owned New Line engaged in various forms of “self-dealing” with affiliated companies, an issue that has been vigorously pursued by plaintiffs attorney Stanton “Larry” Stein.
It seeks unspecified damages, restitution and an order barring New Line from striking any more deals without seeking the most competitive and beneficial terms from unaffiliated third parties. The case stems from a 1998 written agreement for Wingnut and New Line to jointly produce and distribute the three films. Among other terms, Wingnut got paid a fixed fee and shared in “first dollar” gross receipts.
New Line is accused of improperly deducting certain home video costs that were not spelled out in the agreement, paying an incorrect royalty rate for DVD sales, delaying the reporting of certain licensing revenue and failing to audit subdistributors, including those affiliated with New Line. The latter claim goes to the broader issue of self-dealing, in which Wingnut accuses New Line of allowing its subdistributors to charge a higher fee than would be expected from nonaffiliated companies.On the surface, Jackson looks a little greedy to me. After all, how many millions of dollars did he get from this project already? how much more do you need man?!?! On the other hand, if New Line did do all the things they are accused of doing, then that’s just dirty pool. If you owe Jackson cash… Then pay him his damn cash.
You can read the whole CNN article here. You should go over and give it a read.
There won’t be a Peter Jackson “The Hobbit”? I have seen a trailer but since it came from the internet maybe it was hand made?
its a business agreement that was signed. Regardless of how much Peter Jackson already made from the film.
The money not only goes to Peter Jackson, but to the actors, staff, and WETA.
Conibear: there is no proposed filming of the Hobbit. There wasn’t before this happened, there most certainly is not now. There will not be a Peter Jackson helmed Hobbit, at least not any time within the next decade.
Here are the reasons pre-lawsuit:
The rights to the Hobbit are partially held by New Line (a Time Warner company) and partially held by MGM (a Sony company). Until the complete rights are in one set of hands the film will not be made. Period. Why not share? Because both companies view the rights they are currently holding as an assett potentially worth around a billion dollars in profit and ANY CEO that takes a billion dollar asset and devalues it down to five hundred mil will be fired. In a heartbeat. This is business, it’s all about maximizing profit. How many times have you heard about branches of major corporations being shut down because they “weren’t profitable enough”? Plenty if you’ve been listening, and note that it’s not because they weren’t profitable, but because they weren’t profitable enough.
The one glimmer of hope that the rights might come together died when Sony won the bidding war for MGM over Time Warner. If Warner had gotten MGM the door would have been open, but they didn’t, so forget about ANY version of the Hobbit being made until that situation changes. In the meantime both sides will continue to do what they’ve already been doing: waiting and hoping that the other guys fall asleep at the switch and allow their rights to expire so that they can scoop them up. And, really, considering that Tolkein’s sons were less than pleased with the Jackson Lord of the Rings I don’t see them re-selling the Hobbit rights even if that happens.
But, that was just the situation for the rights. Even if New Line had them all Jackson has been very clear that he wouldn’t make it any time in the forseeable future: he spent seven years on LOTR and wants a break from middle earth before he even thinks about going back. He has said over and over again that he wants to make a few small films first. He’s got Kong in the works now, The Lovely Bones after that and word is that there’s a major war picture after that, and I’ve even heard rumblings of some lo-fi genre picture to be shots in the gaps of his shooting schedules on the other things. If he knocks the things he’s already got on his plate down in order, and does so fairly quickly and efficiently, you’re still ooking at about 5 – 7 years before he has a viable open slot for a big budget picture.
Post-lawsuit:
And John, I can’t believe that you’re even suggesting greed on Jackson’s part … if you even glance at the numbers there’s a huge amount in play …
But I digress.
Note that this lawsuit only covers Fellowship of the Ring. Why is that? Because Fellowship is the only one far enough into its life cycle for Jackson’s accountants to have gone over the numbers in detail. You can lay money that in the next six months to a year you will see the exact same lawsuit filed for The Two Towers, and six months to a year after that there will be another for Return of the King as the numbers come to light. All of the articles have been very clear that they tried to deal with this outside the courts and were unable to do so so you can bet that all three films will be contested in court.
Now some numbers. Each of the films turned over a billion dollars in profit after DVD sales. If New Line has skewed the figures as far as what they owe Jackson by as little as 1% of the profits – and you can believe that he’s being paid via profit points – you’re looking at a difference of about ten million dollars. Considering that Jackson has points as director, writer and producer of the film I’m willing to bet that the total value of this suit alone will be at least fifty million dollars, likely significantly more, and that value will be repeated for each of the other two for a total dollar value in the 150-250 million dollar range. That is a lot of money. Which means, among other things, that this legal process will be as long and drawn out as New Line can possibly make it if for no other reason than because nobody will want to be the CEO who has to see the settlement come out of their bottom line. My guess would be that you’re looking at up to ten years before all three lawsuits clear the courts.
Will Jackson work with New Line in any capacity while the lawsuits are in motion? Absolutely not.
If my timeline’s even close to correct then I’d expect Ian McKellan, at least, to be dead before the dust settled and it became sensible to even consider the possibility of bringing Jackson back on board and the other actors would have all aged so much that the whole idea of reuniting the director and as much cast as possible will be completely moot.
It’s a pipe dream, people. Let it go.
This isn’t suprising at all. New Line is one of the worst companies out there right now when it comes to upholding contractual obligations. Seriously they’ve had so many lawsuits settled out of court that I’m sometimes suprised they can even fund movies anymore…
And Kung Fu Hustle is the greatest movie ever…
FoTR is a close second ;)
All I know is, I hope The Hobbit is going to be the best movie ever made….who’s with me on this?
I can’t wait to see Smaug!
Oh and, pay Jackson his cash! He has more heart in this than Newline, and I don’t care about business, it is heart and passion that made this movie its business! I say give the man his own country or something. ROTK was the best movie ever made(Period) :)
I’m like you John, Return of the King (hell the LOTR trilogy) is THE BEST EVER. But I don’t know if it’s an CNN reporting error re: the use of terminology but if Jackson is sueing over “profits” there ain’t no such thing in Hollywood. The legal debacle over “Coming to America” proves that. I don’t know of any contracts that specify getting a portion of box office or video/dvd “profits” – you just negotiate a cut of what comes in and the accountants get creative thereafter. Seems to me that New Line should just pay out what’s ever due if they contracted with Jackson to do so.
I suspect (and it is only a suspicion) that this has very little directly to do with Jackson himself, or indeed with any of the New Line execs who had a working relationship with him during the filming. In plenty of businesses, the accountants and lwayers exist in a slightly different sphere to the rest of the company, and a dispute between them need not necessarily signal a breakdown of working relationships elsewhere. Also, the lawyers probably don’t see filing suits as signalling an all-out fight in the way non-lawyers would – it could well be more of a procedural thing, a bargaining tool to use in negotiations.
Having said that, the fact that King Kong isn’t being made with New Line, and that Jackson spent his own money to get the film rights for The Lovely Bones, so he wouldn’t have to deal with a studio… perhaps there were more behind-the-scenes shenanigans than we thought.
If there is a serious dispute, I’m not sure it’s greedy of Wingnut to want as big a share as possible – they did produce these vastly successful films, after all. They probably see this as a chance to turn themselves from being a pretty small company, working on Jackson’s films and little else, into a significant player in the movie business. With the post-Rings upsurge of using NZ as a location, they must see it as a huge opportunity, and they’ll want to have the capital to, er capitalise on it to the fullest extent. Also, they might want to show the Hollywood big boys that the Kiwis won’t be pushed around…
(Oh, and Fellowship’s best, ROTK second, Two Towers third. Unless you’re talking about the Extended editions, of which ROTK has the worst of them all – doesn’t work as a narrative anywhere near as well.)
I don’t like this any more than you do and I agree with your assessment. Whoever needs to should put up and be done with it. What is this going to do for the proposed filming of “The Hobbit.”
But we need to settle one thing right here and now. ROTK was not even the best movie in the Trilogy let alone the best movie of all time. “The Fellowship” was easily the best movie of the Trilogy. I have watched it literally hundreds of times. “Return of the King” was not bad but its multiple “endings” really turned me off in a bad way.
Hey Darko.
Basically I agree with you. The only exception is that you said Peter Jackson took the Risk. I submit that Jackson didn’t “risk” anything. It was New Line that put up all the money for the projects. They were the only ones who stood to loose if the “Rings” franchise flopped. Jackson was going to at least get his base salariy out of it no matter what.
still ROTK is a pretty damn good cinema experience.
I just wanted to comment that if there has been some improper money circulation from New Line, this is wrong and the problem must be taken care off. I don’t care if Jackson has won a lot of millions with LOTR. This is not the point. He took the risk, and he succeeded like nobody else could. This is not a Pierce Brosnan achievement in a Bond film.
John Said: (I still personally maintain that Return of the King is the single greatest film ever made).
It’s official John…you are insane :)
…RotK isn’t even the best of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (that would be FotR) If there is a pile of ‘some of the best-films ever made’ RotK is somewhere on that pile, but perhaps closer to the bottom.
I offer up:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Apocalypse Now
Fargo
Blade Runner
The Seven Samurai
The Maltese Falcon
Das Boot
Princess Mononoke
Rear Window
Magnolia
or, of course,
Citizen Kane
On a technical level, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (as the sum of it’s parts) is probably cinema’s greatest achievement, but I would hardly say that any of the three films are the ‘best film ever made’
/That’s…just, Like, my Opinion…….Man